The Emerald Rose

       There is only one thing I can say,…Oy Vah! I feel like one of the Apollo 13 Astronauts trying to troubleshoot their problem in the blind. The new computer equipment is great. 22″ studio moniter with small footprint, great color, built in camera and microphone. Really stylish CPU (Inspiron 513) kind of a cross between a shiny plastic box with “bling” all around the edges, a tray on top with two USB plug-ins, really cool. But as we all know (and no pun intended here) “You gotta think outside the box”. Or in this case, inside the box. After wrestling with “To Vista,..or not to Vista?” Well too late kiddies, that be all there is now! XP, XP Pro,2000, and all the rest are gone. (And if I didn’t have to literally sit there at least twice a day and pull the power cord out of the wall, wait a minute, re-plug and re-boot,well,…I would have been happy.) But I wasn’t and took the plunge.

       A word of advise DO NOT attempt to set up this machine without a skilled and highly qualified fourth grader present,….trust me on this! Machine was up and humming in about five minutes. The book I bought talked about the ease of transferring your files. Well it almost was, BUT it won’t transfer your programs, you have to go load them in and set them up first, one by one, by one. (OLD FART ALERT: Carefully store all your current computers programs, CD’s, back ups etc. in one nice place. NEVER mix them up, particularly if you have more than one computer in the house,….”or you vill be shot”.

        I have five piles in “The Pit” now, actually seven if you count the DOS and COBAL programs I just refuse to throw out, all programs I’ve bought or recieved with a computer or from a friend getting rid of theirs. Oh, and opeating systems from DOS 3.1 up to VISTA HOME PREMIUM, Apple System 7, 8, 9. and 9.5.! Netscape, I still have the old BETA2 version, and my favorite “Browser” Netscape Communicator.

       But while Vista has all the appeal of a gorgeous blonde with big blue eyes glancing at you with a sexy smile as she goes by, well,….maybe it could work. Too late I’m committed to it. Now things not to do, or “What ain’t in the manual because you are going to do it anyway .” READ CAREFULLY!

     To save a few bucks I ordered the “home and student” version of Office with it. BIG mistake! Go for a full Office, or better yet the “Office Small Business” edition. Why? Becasue there is no OUTLOOK in it! They are trying to hype you to Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and Hot Mail as e-mail purveyors. So off to my “Best Buy” superstore to “check out the prices” and pick up one of those littel “Transfer cables” which is touted as “so easy even an old fart can do it”, when it comes to transferring files. Got said cables and came home to load up the programs and transfer everything.

      (Insidentally I have a dysflexic finger. It always reverses the “u” and the “s” in becasue,…see?)

     After six trys I got all the files transferred (not the operator, but remember I told you I had to pull the plug at least twice a day, well five times today alone. This morning when I got up I decided to be sure my Quicken home finances program was all nice and happy and would still do on-line daily updates of all my credit cards, bank accounts, and my brokerage accounts for my IRA.

      As I hit the start up and a little screen came up asking me if I wanted to set up a new account I said no, and it asked me if I wanted to open and existing account, (Oh shit, why doesn’t it know I only have one account and it should have transfered everything last night!) Long story short it did transfer it, but who the hell knows where too!

      Well I’m back to work today, stopping at the Pub for three or four on the way home, and then I’ll trry and rationalize with Vista. Something like “Look, you ever want to see your hard drive again? then stop messing with me!”

      Got to go, again the Boss expects me to work! The nerve of him!

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